GPs facing more complaints

Complaints about treatment provided by doctors outside normal working hours have risen significantly over the past seven years, according to new figures.

The Medical Defence Union, which provides legal, ethical and complaints handling for more than half of UK doctors, said that complaints about GPs working out of hours were relatively small but were increasing.

A new survey by Helen Goodwin, clinical risk manager at the MDU, revealed they now account for 10% of all complaints made to the MDU by its members. In 1997 it was just 1%.

Over the seven-year period from 1997 to the end of last month, 421 complaints arose from out of hours care. Twenty-one of those were made in 1997 compared to 120 last year.

Already this year there have been 116 complaints.

Dr Karen Dalby, also a clinical risk manager for the MDU, said: "The rising number of complaints about out of hours care is perhaps surprising given the relatively small number of these consultations that take place, compared to those during surgery hours.

"We do not know for sure why patients are complaining more about out of hours treatment, but it could be because of the change in the way these services are provided.

"Over the last few year, more GPs have been switching to out of hours co-operatives - a group of GPs coming together to provide out of hours care in shifts - or deputising services."

Dr Dalby said this could mean a patient is not seen by their regular doctor, who will also not have access to medical records.

The MDU said that some of these complaints could have arisen because of breakdowns in communication and could be avoided with the establishment of good communication links between GPs and out of hours providers.